Steve Lynch's LIRR site.
Very Brief History of the Central RR of Long Island.
A(lexander). T(urney). Stewart, the merchant prince of Manhattan, had the bright idea of building a model city on the Hempstead Plains of west-central Long Island, which he proceeded to do; it is today's Garden City. To serve this purpose-built suburb, he created a railroad out of older lines and new trackage built across the open plains, the Central Railroad of Long Island. To get the bricks he needed to build this vast complex of homes and rail, he built the Nassau Brick Works in Central Park (today's Bethpage) and ran a branch line there to serve it. Remnants of the Central line form the Central Branch of the Long Island Rail Road and are inextricably linked to William K. Vanderbilt, Jr.'s Long island Motor Parkway.
Not-Quite-So-Brief History of
the Central RR of Long Island.
(taken almost verbatim from the Webmaster's article "THE CENTRAL RAILROAD OF LONG ISLAND
(A. T. Stewart Builds/Cuts through Oyster Bay Town) -
Another Famous Right-of-Way through the Town of Oyster Bay""
in the {tbs} issue of the FREEHOLDER,
"The History Magazine of the Town of Oyster Bay", pp. {tbs}-{tbs}.)
Once upon a time, though I can't remember exactly when - - - oops! That's not how one writes history. But the history of the Central Railroad of Long Island is not much more than a fairy tale or bedtime story.
With the blessing of Vincent Seyfried, renowned historian of Queens and Garden City, and only incidentally author of the definitive seven-volume series, "The Long Island Rail Road - A Comprehensive History" (see the author's LIRR Bibliography), I shall give a little background into rise and fall of this strange remnant of railroad history on Long Island and in Oyster Bay town.
The Central Railroad of Long Island was conceived in the mind of that fabulous New York City "merchant prince", A(lexander). T(urney). Stewart in 1869, just four years after the end of the Civil War. Stewart amassed an incredible fortune for his time, 1½ million dollars by 1833 and twenty million dollars by 1860! A bon vivant and patron of the arts, he got the idea of building a controlled city, elegant and refined in every way, of the finest materials money could buy. Stewart offered an unheard of $55 per acre to the Town of hempstead on July 17, 1869 ; for the then-unheard of sum of $394,350, Stewart obtained 7,170 acres of relatively worthless land and bought an additional 1,500 acres from private parties. This tract encompassed all the land from New Hyde Park Road on the west to the western border of the Farmingdale and from Old Country Road south to the northern boundary of the Village of Hempstead. All told, Stewart had acquired a demesne some ten miles long by two miles deep. He laid out some 500 miles of roads and house plots of at least an acre. The next step in Stewart's empire-building was to lay out and build a private railroad to serve his new city. It also had to serve a new brickworks he had constructed in Central Park (now Bethpage) to supply the materials for his houses. Starting at the East River ferries, the "Stewart Road" was to take residents directly to their residences in Garden City. Owning the entire Hempstead Plains, Stewart had no trouble building in what was later to become Nassau County, but the Long Island Rail Road and the Flushing & North Side RR each controlled the approaches to Manhattan.
Conrad Poppenhusen and Elizur Hinsdale of the F&NS made a deal with Stewart and the Stewart Road, double tracked, was put into work from Farmingdale to New Hyde Park Road, with an extension northward to Mineola being started in October 1870. At least 15 trains were to run each way each day and Hempstead expresses were to make the run in 30 minutes!
Many iron bridges were erected to avoid crossing public roads at grade. One still exists to this day, flush with the ground, in the southeastern cloverleaf where Stewart Avenue crosses the Meadowbrook Parkway; this one was built for what the author assumed was a private spur to the Meadowbrook Country Club (the remains of the station are still standing off Post/Merrick Avenue). However, look at the U.S. Army Air Corps aerial photographs of the area on my LIMP History Page 3 under the LIMP Historical Miscellany section; rather it may well have been a zigzag of Whaleneck Avenue (today's Merrick Avenue - the southern continuation from Westbury of Post Avenue). LIRR steam locomotive #35 (moved to Oyster Bay village on 02 Aug 2001) used to sit opposite this spot in Salisbury/Eisenhower Park.
In late 1871/early 1872, Stewart and Poppenhusen determined to extend the road beyond Farmingdale to Babylon and the Fire Island ferries. The brickworks were in full swing and the line was finished to the LIRR main just west of Merrit's Road in Farmingdale; bricks were shipped over the road the very next day after the line was opened across the LIRR. The line was opened eastward to Bethpage Junction on May 26, 1873, and Friday, August 1, 1873, saw the first train early in the morning and full service from Hunters Pont to Babylon commenced that very afternoon.
The major competitor of the LIRR was the South Side RR of LI; it got in trouble in late 1873 and Poppenhusen bought it out on September 25, 1874. Innovations included the use of refrigerator cars to bring fresh fish into NYC from the Babylon docks and a RR mail car (1874), with mail being sorted en route and delivered mornings and evenings (ah, what luxury!).
By 1873, Charlick and his LIRR started competing in earnest and the Poppenhusen empire began to crumble. Rates fell far below break-even and the Poppenhusen family finally gave in and the Long Island Rail Road acquired the Central, along with its South Side subsidiary. Things continued to head downhill and in 1876, the whole LIRR, was put in receivership.
The Central Road was abandoned between Garden City and Babylon, and elsewhere. Only the stretch from Floral Park to Garden city and the branch to Hempstead continued in use. Today, only the eastern end of the Central, from the junction at Farmingdale to Babylon is still (or, more correctly, again) in use. The old right of way from Garden City eastward to where it is cut by the Meadowbrook Parkway is still used occasionally by freights of the New York & Atlantic (lessor of the LIRR freight service) and by the Ringling Brothers-Barnum & Bailey trains when the "Greatest Show on Earth" plays the Nassau Coliseum. The right of way from Eisenhower Park eastward to the LIRR Main Line in the vicinity of Bethpage State Parkway is readily seen from the air or from any north-south street crossing it; it runs almost arrow-straight along the line between Salisbury Park Drive/Meridian Street on the north side and Old Farm Road/Hickory Lane/Mallard Road on the south. It abuts the right of way of the old Long Island Motor Parkway (see map, below) along most of this stretch, where it runs immediately south of the Parkway and is often mistaken for that old road. The crossing of the Central and the LIRR, halfway between Bethpage State Parkway and Merrit's Road and Central Avenue and Hempstead Turnpike ( NYS Route 24) is still the junction of the LIRR Main Line from Hicksville to Montauk and the Central Branch to the Montauk Divison at Babylon.
Other Central RR remnants are an old brick arch bridge located in the woods on the immediate west side of the Bethpage State Parkway directly under the LIPA high tension lines in Bethpage. That bridge once carried the tracks over Massatayun Creek, long since filled in at that location. Much of the bridge is still intact but it is mostly filled in and hidden in some dense brush in which your author became so entangled (see below) he never found the bridge (the south arch can be seen under dense pricker bushes but the north side has collapsed - I'll have to go back). The bridge's location is very close to B Tower (Bethpage Junction) which is just east of the BSP. This was the junction created when the remains of the Central RR were connected to the LIRR main line there. There is also an old brick turntable pit just off Round Swamp Road. That 1873 brick works line had an enginehouse with a turntable and, largely thanks to LIRR historian Dave Morrison, the original brick-walled pit was cleaned out by a group of us from the Steam Locomotive #35 Restoration Committee on 08 Mar 2002; pictures are on the CRR continuation page 1 under the Bethpage Branch.
For an even-far-more detailed history of the Central RR of Long Island, refer to Vincent F. Seyfried's definitive 7-volume history of the LIRR which is mostly out of print and hard to find; see my LIRR BIBLIOGRAPHY.
Here, from my Long Island Motor Parkway (LIMP) History Page 3, are two U. S. Army Air Corps aerial photographs of Mitchel Field, dated 8-10-24 (left), looking east, and 5-5-31 (right), looking north-west across the Field to Roosevelt Field:
[1924 (L) and 1931 (R) U. S. Army Air Corps photos]
Examining each carefully revealed the following:
[1924 U. S. Army Air Corps photo]
The 1924 picture, looking east clearly shows the LIMP going cross-country from the upper left to the top center, dark with trees, and bending slightly southeast at the left margin (at Whaleneck Avenue - today's Merrick Avenue - where the large white buildings are). The LIRR Central Branch is immediately north (left) of the Field) with Stewart even further, almost to the LIMP. If you look carefull at the dark patch in the upper left across the LIMP, you are almost certainly looking at the Meadowbrook Lodge entry ramp of the Parkway, the curved line just to the right of the intersection of the RoW and what was (pre-Salisbury/Eisenhower Park) School Street/Newbridge Road. The dark line running from the upper right margin to the top ¾ from the left to the right is the Hempstead Turnpike/Conklin Street.
of this series of LIRR pages.
To tour the Long Island railroads pages in sequence, the arrows take you from the previous page to the LIRR index, to the first LIRR page, and on to pages 2 and up, then to the other LI railroads page, and lastly to the LIRR Historical Society page.
© Copyright S. Berliner, III - 2000, 2001, 2002 - All rights reserved.
Return to Top of Page
times since the counter was installed.
(17 Mar 04)